Celebrating the dreams and realities of spaceflight in the past, present, and retro-future. New posts Wednesday-Friday.

A whole new Jupiter

Jupiter’s south pole, as seen by NASA’s Juno spacecraft from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometers). Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles

Yeah yeah, I know I recently posted a Jupiter photo, but with imagery like this coming from Juno, I really don’t care. If the internet’s space content is slanted heavily towards Jupiter, so be it.

“Every 53 days, we go screaming by Jupiter, get doused by a fire hose of Jovian science, and there is always something new,” said [Scott] Bolton. “On our next flyby on July 11, we will fly directly over one of the most iconic features in the entire solar system — one that every school kid knows — Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. If anybody is going to get to the bottom of what is going on below those mammoth swirling crimson cloud tops, it’s Juno and her cloud-piercing science instruments.”